Bloodlines
by nerdygoddess
Summary: Only a few knew. It had been the Ministry’s best kept secret... until now. Everyone's beliefs were scattered. The muggleborns and the purebloods were complete opposites, and that had been the way it was day after day. Not anymore.


**This story contains sensitive themes, specifically this chapter. Please, do not burn my story, though. If you think about it, it is in no way, what goes on in this chapter, abortion, whether you support it or not. Thank you!**

**Also, for this story, let's pretend that HBP never happened...**

**Chapter One - The Ministry's Best-Kept Secret**

The boy hurried from the Department of Records, anxious to see people who might've seen him leave the room. It was past midnight, but the Ministry never quite slept. He had decided that this was the best time for him to check and see. It turned out that he left with much, much more than he bargained for. A jolt of electricity went through his body at the realization. Getting into the room in the first place took various forms of Polyjuice Potion and bribery, along with memory charms. He twitched, scared now of anyone who might've come near. He had been playing with fire, but now it wasn't even fire that he was playing with. It was a giant, roaring inferno straight from the bowels of hell, it was that bad. Walking to the stairwell in an attempt to avoid contact with anything human, he thought over what information he now knew. This would change the whole of the wizarding world forever. Everything that everyone fought for would be crushed. Voldemort's extermination of muggleborns would go completely haywire. A disturbing thought passed his mind... did Voldemort know what he was doing? An even more frightening one came next- was he doing this on purpose?

He thought of all of the information he'd seen. He'd originally gone in there to see his roots after he found out that he was not his mother's child. The first folder that he opened was that of Rasmilda Vonthe. He knew her quite well; he was her cousin. He looked under the heading that said, "parentage/ancestry" and was instantly thrown into a state of shock. "Pureblood," read the description. Completely frightened, he closed the folder. The ministry would never lie. They kept painfully accurate accounts of everything in the magical world. Why then, had Vonthe's file, said "pureblood?" He scurried to the next file, his own. Muttering it aloud, he said, "Archibald Childress... pureblood." He thought back to the day he'd discovered he was not his parents' offspring. It had been but a week ago.

"_Arch," the haggard woman cried, carrying a small platter of potatoes to the dining area table. Her limp wrists could barely support the weight of the dish. He hurried over to her. _

"_I've got it, Mother," he told her in reassurance. It would've been a lot easier to just have used magic, but that was strictly prohibited in her house. She was thoroughly frightened by the prospect of floating dishes and things cooking on their own. A traditional muggle, she was. Well, a muggle at the very least. He cursed, unable to wait for next week when he'd be on the roaring scarlet passenger train headed for his darling school, his reprieve, where he had friends who understood magic and obviously would never once question it, people who knew that he went to school at a wizarding school and not at a boring, smelly boarding school back where he lived. People who respected him resided there. Oh, how he longed for them now. His mother shrieked in terror._

_He had been using wandless magic. Terribly sorry, dear woman, for frightening you out of your wits. The potatoes had drifted from his hands and gracefully onto the table. "Sorry," he said to her before they sat down. The poor family had just potatoes to eat tonight. Ever since his father's death, they didn't have too much of anything. His clothes around here were rags, and had it not been for the financial support from his grandparents, they would've been living in a hole in the ground. He found that his house, however, was just that. It was dark, dirty, and dismal. The potatoes were the most inexpensive thing in the supermarket. _

_His mother's face looked drained and lifeless, like she was only hanging on for him. He reached to distribute the potatoes, and his mother uttered something inaudible. "Yes?" he prompted her gently. _

_She looked at him, clearly in pain. He, in turn, looked to her, shocked. "When do you come of age in the other world, my son?" She often referred to the wizarding world as "the other world." _

"_I am of age at present, Mother," he replied, taking a bite of the horrendously disgusting food. An even more pained look spread across her once lovely countenance._

"_Son, I have something to tell you," she said, her breath coming in short spurts. He rose from the table and knelt next to her. "I could not get pregnant with you. So we went to a laboratory." He looked like he was going to say something, but she rose her hand before settling it in her lap. "I am weak, Arch, let me finish." She coughed hard and his hand went to her back to pat it. "I knew something was different about the lab. We continued anyway. We went in and the lab worker put the child, you, into me. He took the egg and sperm from your father and I, of course, but I have no idea what happened next. All I saw was him putting aside that Petri dish containing our sperm and egg and picked up another. _

"_Nine months later, on the early morning of September 16th, out you came. You looked fine, with the exception of the fact that you looked really nothing like us. That came as a shock, and I knew that you did not come from us. A few years later, you displayed that weird behavior. And before you turned eleven, there came the letter from the school. When you left, I returned to the laboratory asking why you were in that other realm, and they just told me that you were a wizard. You did magic. It was unbelievable to me. You were not my child. I had the deepest feeling, but son, do not take it the wrong way! In love, not blood, you are my own. And remember," she said, looking at him, her pupils dilating. Tears were steadily falling down his face. "that I will always love you." At that very moment, she collapsed. Archibald held his mother closely. Her breathing had stopped. _

_He cried on and on. His mother was deceased. He was alone. A whimper escaped his lips. He had witnessed death. He was holding a dead woman who, from the explanation, was only his, for lack of a better term, adoptive mother. He was only seventeen. The night waned on and he sat stroking her hair. Closing her eyelids, he lay her head at the table to call an ambulance. "Is it an emergency?" came the voice from the other line. A tear escaped once again. Well, in all actuality, it wasn't really an emergency... she was already gone._

"_No. My mother died."_

"_How long has she been dead?"_

"_A few hours."_

_The woman sounded shocked. "Well, why didn't you call earlier?"_

"_She was already dead. Whether on the ambulance or in her house, it doesn't really matter... can you just send an ambulance?" He sounded somewhat exhausted as he whisked his light brown hair from his face._

"_Yes. They will come shortly." She returned to her professional tone of voice._

"_Thanks." He hung the receiver on the wall. Getting up, he picked up the platter and the plates, taking them to the kitchen to magically wash them. He picked up the house a bit before hearing the wailing of a siren. They had come in, taking his mother away. They tried to take him too, until he told them that he was legally clear of his parents. He was eighteen, he lied. They grudgingly left him there after he came through with a series of lies on how it would be too depressing to see her like that and to call his grandparents and everything to arrange a burial. A funeral would've been too expensive. He kissed her nose, telling the woman goodbye. Shortly thereafter, the ambulance pulled off, no sirens could be heard. _

_It had been a very different day if nothing else. Running up to his room, Archibald packed everything that he possessed in a magical bag, taking the Knight Bus to Diagon Alley. A while after, he received his mother's inheritance and bought new school materials and decided to stay the rest of the summer in the Leaky Cauldron. He thought so hard about how to get into the Department of Records to find out who his parents were and finally devised a plan. That department, after all, was probably the least guarded one. He'd bought bottles of Polyjuice potion and one night crept into the Ministry, taking a hair from a guard and popping it into one of the bottles. He'd done many illegal things to get where he was now._

Okay, so he was the offspring of someone else. He could kind of accept that... until now. Pureblood? _Pureblood?_ No way. That sperm and egg came from a pureblood family? No wonder he was in Slytherin. A mudblood in Slytherin. A poor one at that. His mind raced frantically. He thought of other muggleborns and reached for Hermione Granger's file. Hermione Granger, the one girl who he ever loved- the smartest girl in all of Hogwarts. She was the only one who scored higher than him on tests. She was the only person who he had immediately liked. She was, in his opinion, the nicest person he'd ever met. "Hermione Granger. Pureblood." He stated it like it was something so clear, something so obvious. It's too bad then that the whole school knew she wasn't a pureblood. No one knew he was a pureblood. He even didn't believe that he was a pureblood, let alone Hermione Granger. The files had to be wrong. He looked as he searched by wandlight, "Creevey, a pureblood. Nelson, a pureblood. Colwin, a pureblood." He named off people who were muggleborns. Incredulously, he had left the room.

Archibald headed straight for the Minister of Magic's office. The guard level had died down considerably by the time he left the Department of Records, and with good reason. It was two in the morning. He put a disillusionment charm on himself before finishing his walk to the Minister's office. They made it so easy to get in; he wondered if they even valued their dear Minister. He assumed they didn't after stepping through the door and into the room, casting one of the quickest memory charms on the guards ever. It didn't take too long, after all, to erase a few seconds of their memory. "Minister," he said, walking around, still invisible. He hadn't expected to use the expensive potion on the Minister of Magic, but he had a feeling it would be worth it. Oh, how many wizarding laws he had broken tonight... He walked behind the confused Minister and forcibly made him drink the Veritaserum. Now for a question to ask. He removed the disillusionment charm and put a silencing charm around the room. Leaning on the desk, he spoke with the frightened man, knowing that he would have to administer a memory charm when the Veritaserum wore off.

"Who are you?" he shrieked, thoroughly angered. "You cannot impede upon the Minister of Magic!"

"My name is Archibald Childress..." he said, bored. "And I mean no harm. I have a few questions, though, on why you're lying in all of your files in the Department of Records. I am surely not a pureblood, now am I?"

"I don't know. I don't even know you," the Minister spat. "You are quite aware, child, that you are in a position to go to Azkaban! Trespassing, giving me of all people Veritaserum...!"

Archibald ignored the gray man's protests. "Yes, yes, but I'm telling you, I'm not going to hurt you." The Minister's facial expressions relaxed. "My mother said that I was artificially inseminated in a lab where they knew about magic. Now, I am a muggleborn, and I came to you asking where such a lab is."

He swallowed hard. This was pretty big here. A huge secret that the Ministry of Magic held and only he knew about it. Only him and the line of previous Ministers, along with the labworkers. Not even Albus Dumbledore had the faintest notion of what was going on. He attempted to avoid the question. "Muggles, of course, have such labs."

"Why would they know about magic?"

"The Ministry has one," he blurted. Ah, the Veritaserum.

Archibald's interest grew. "She said that it was another sperm and egg in that laboratory that was injected into her. I am that child. What in the hell is going on?"

The Minister trembled. No one was supposed to know. No one was supposed to slip up at the labs! How did this happen! Silence. The question wasn't specific enough.

"Where is the information on this topic?" The minister got up and walked over to a portrait. He put his hand on it and the portrait opened. Out came a small stack of papers, dusty as ever. The boy's eyes widened at the words on the front. "Pureblood Birthing Policy and the Laboratories," it said. The file cleared itself of the dust, shaking. It grew bright red when the boy touched it. He took the Minister's hand without hesitation and touched it to the pack of papers. The Minister recoiled. Picking up the papers, he performed a memory charm, and with a quick "Thank you," he whisked off to the Leaky Cauldron.

He thought critically, reading the information with deep interest. Purebloods can only have two children unless otherwise administrated by the Ministry; every pureblood family miscarriage is actually the child being taken from them by the Ministry right when they developed, a day after conception. They, the purebloods, took it as a curse. The ministry officials who knew nothing of the big secret took it to be a form of control to keep the number of purebloods from becoming too great.

So the way it had worked was that the purebloods would never have another child, so they worried nothing of birth control. Truth was, every time a child was actually conceived, that child was sent to the Ministry laboratories. The muggles who couldn't get pregnant would come to the laboratories, thinking that they would be using their own egg and sperm to mix and get pregnant. Well, they weren't. The wizard working the laboratory made it an illusion that it was their own sperm and egg he was joining. He actually took nothing from them. He only artificially inseminated the pureblood child into the woman. Voila. There's your everyday, run-of-the-mill muggleborn in the wizarding world. It's just with the Childresses, the Ministry slipped up. And it's too bad that the child was so inquisitive and curious as to actually investigate, too.

Wait, did we miss something? Oh yes, the "muggleborns" were not muggleborns at all. That would make them... yes. That's exactly what that would make them. His lip curled. _Fuck you then, Draco Malfoy. We're equals._ he thought happily of the boy who had teased him about his muggle parentage for so long. Laying the open file on his dresser, Archibald felt anxious again. Dangerous, even. He shared one of the deepest secrets in the wizarding world with the Minister of Magic and very few other people, and the Minister had no notion of his knowing. His only problem now was what to do with this knowledge. School started soon, he'd show Hermione or something. He fell asleep on top of his comforter.

Muggleborns were actually purebloods.

**A/N: Whoa, whoa, this has to be the most intense fanfic I've ever written. Don't fret, we'll see the other characters next chapter. How is their world going to turn upside down with this information out?**

**Next time up: We're on the train to Hogwarts!**


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